Links for today’s readings:
Read: Deuteronomy 17 Listen: (3:24) Read: 2 Corinthians 10 Listen: (2:45)
Scripture Focus: Deuteronomy 17.16-20
16 The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, “You are not to go back that way again.” 17 He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold. 18 When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. 19 It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees 20 and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.
Reflection: Kingly Qualifications
By John Tillman
Many places in scripture tell us God considered Israel’s request for a king an idolatrous act, a rejection of him, and a rebellion. (1 Samuel 8.6-9) Yet, knowing the request will one day come, God gave Moses a list of qualifications for kings.
The godly king Moses described is nothing like the ones Israel had and nothing like the ones we ask for today. In a poll released in July of 2024, Americans rated important traits in a president. They don’t compare well with God’s priorities.
God’s first requirement is to not build up expensive military resources. (Deut 17.16) The second requirement is sexual purity in marriage to just one partner. (Deut 17.17) The third requirement is to not enrich himself through his position. (Deut 17.17) Sounds tough already, right? But the last qualification is the kicker and most important.
God wanted kings to be biblical scholars. (Deut 17.18-20) The first task of the king was to write out his own copy of God’s law and to study and read it every day, so as to follow it without turning to the right or the left. As Tim Mackie of the Bible Project says, Israel’s king was supposed to be “a Bible nerd.”
These kingly qualifications aren’t binding on our political systems, however, we can evaluate political leaders or other kinds of leaders using these principles. It’s tempting to look at the list, despair, and complain that there’s no one qualified. We can blame the system and absolve ourselves from guilt over who we choose to support. However, there’s a twist…
In democracies similar to the United States, authority derives from the consent of the governed. You are the king. These principles are for you. The reason our leaders don’t match them is decades of us not matching them.
This is not just a technicality for citizens of democracies. It is a theological reality. With or without political power, we are the body of Christ, our king, on this earth. As regents and ambassadors of the Kingdom of Heaven, we are the rulers commanded to do these things.
To reign with Christ, develop the qualities of a godly ruler. Love and study the Bible. Do not enrich yourselves through misuse of power. Be sexually pure in marriage or chaste in singleness. Do not trust in violence or its tools but trust in the name of the Lord our God. (Psalm 20.7)
Properly representing Jesus’ kingdom will have effects on earthly ones.
Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Come, let us sing to the Lord; … For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. — Psalm 95.1, 3
– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summer
by Phyllis Tickle
Read more: Kings Like Ahab
Victories don’t grant leaders a never-expiring stamp of God’s approval or mean a leader is “God’s man or woman.”
Read more: To Wicked Kings, Foreign and Domestic
We must abandon Jonah’s sinful wish to weaponize God’s wrath. God will not be our tool of destruction.